Liliputing

  • Reviews
  • Deals
  • How To…
  • Mini PCs
  • Shop
  • About
    • About Liliputing
    • Contact us
    • Advertise on Liliputing
    • Support Liliputing
    • Privacy Policy

OLPC to introduce its $100 tablet at CES

01/07/2012 at 7:38 AM by Brad Linder 7 Comments

OLPC XO 3

The folks that never quite manager to bring us the $100 laptop are at it again. This year the One Laptop Per Child group will be introducing an 8 inch tablet that sells for less than $100.

The XO 3.0 will reportedly have a 1024 x 768 pixel display, a Marvell Armada PXA618 ARM-based processor, and 512MB of memory. The tablet will be available with Google Android or Sugar OS, a custom Linux-based operating system originally designed for the XO Laptop.

Some models may also be available with a Pixel Qi sunlight readable display. Pixel Qi’s screens have two modes. With the backlight on they’re full color LCD displays. But if you cut the backlight, you can view text and images on the screen using ambient light — although they’ll look more like E Ink grayscale displays in that mode.

Like the XO Laptop, the goal is to position the XO tablet as a low-cost computing device for students in the developing world. The tablet is said to get up to 10 hours of battery life, and it can be recharged with solar cells, hand cranks, or other devices.

This all sounds like a pretty big deal — but a lot of these promises sound familiar. The XO Laptop was supposed to sell for $100, but its price never really dipped far below $200. OLPC also never released a long-promised hand crank charging solution for the laptop.

There’s some reason to believe that a $100 laptop is a more achievable goal though. Last year the Indian government started shipping $35 tablets to students in that country. They’re not very good tablets, but it demonstrates that it’s possible to make very cheap yet usable Android tablets given the availability of inexpensive supplies.

OLPC has been working on its tablet designs for the last few years and we’ve seen a number of concept drawings, but it won’t be clear exactly what the new models look like until we see them at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Update: OLPC has posted the first few pictures of the new tablet.

via ComputerWorld and The Verge

 

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Email

Daily Deals (2-21-2019)

If you grew up playing point-and-click games like Maniac Mansion and Moneky Island you have developers Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick to thank. A few … [Read More...]



Support Liliputing

Liliputing’s primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the “Shop” button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we’ll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you’re using an ad blocker and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or…

Contribute via PayPal

  • donate monthly
  • donate once only
Select a Donation Option (USD)

Enter Donation Amount (USD)

7
Leave a Reply

Login with
Facebook Google Twitter WordPress Yahoo! Disqus Reddit Stackoverflow GitHub
avatar
This comment form collects your name, email address, and content to allow us to keep track of comments placed on this website. Please read our privacy policy for more details.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser cookies for the next time I comment.
3 Comment threads
4 Thread replies
0 Followers
 
Most reacted comment
Hottest comment thread
5 Comment authors
Angler43CyberGusaBruce_McBobInvitado Recent comment authors
avatar
This comment form collects your name, email address, and content to allow us to keep track of comments placed on this website. Please read our privacy policy for more details.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser cookies for the next time I comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  Subscribe  
newest oldest most voted
Notify of
Invitado
Guest
Invitado
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

If anything, it sounds more promising than before because:
a) There are already pictures of it at The Verge, and it will be showcased at CES in a matter of days
b) OLPC claims that they already have orders from a couple of governments. Uruguay? I have read it somewhere today.

Anyway, it looks like the ultra-low-cost Android tablet is indeed feasible. The guys at The Verge also did a hands-on with a $99 Chinese Android 4.0 tablet and came away impressed.

For countries that never quite got textbooks, a tablet with free online content and custom apps can be a godsend. In the West, where textbook publishers are already entrenched and people are used to spending a lot of money on paper, it will be more difficult – kind of the way mobile phones have killed landlines in Africa, but not in Europe.

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
7 years ago
Bruce_Mc
Guest
Bruce_Mc
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

I think the OLPC people deserve more credit than they get. Not so much because they succeeded, but because they scared the rest of the industry into making lower priced laptops. Without OLPC I don’t think netbooks as we know them would exist.

The idea that each student can have their own inexpensive computer seemed far out, almost crazy when OLPC first proposed it. Now the technology is catching up to the idea, particularly with tablets. They were ahead of their time, but they had some good ideas and good intentions.

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
7 years ago
CyberGusa
Guest
CyberGusa
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

While I agree OLPC should get a bit more credit, I disagree on it being a lot more as the idea of low cost basic computers goes back farther than the OLPC project.  The limits of technology at the time just prevented them from being either very useful or made them too expensive.  Rather the OLPC project gets most of the credit of just thinking outside of the box for a solution and getting people to think more seriously about it before the technology was ready but remember it was primarily intended to bring computing to poorer nations.  Many who would find even netbooks expensive. While those who follow the industry and of course the big companies themselves were aware of the OLPC project, the average consumer was not when the Eee PC first came out in late 2007 and started the netbook phenomena. The timing had a lot to… Read more »

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
7 years ago
Bruce_Mc
Guest
Bruce_Mc
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

Note that Intel was part of the OLPC project in late 2007. That may have influenced their decisions about how to develop and price the Atom.

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
7 years ago
CyberGusa
Guest
CyberGusa
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

No need to add that note, I already indicated that with the part just before I said…

“So in that much the OLPC did have a effect as Intel was already
experimenting with creating lower cost and lower power solutions.”

But I also pointed out that netbooks started with the Celeron, the ATOM didn’t start replacing it till 2008 and both Intel and MS started imposing strict limitations on the netbook specifications. 

It also doesn’t change that there were even earlier attempts at making netbook like devices, it’s just that the limits of technology at the time either had them too limited in function or too expensive.

OLPC can be credited for helping to accelerate the process, and getting many to start thinking out of the box for solutions. However, there were other factors and the OLPC wasn’t responsible for them all.

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
7 years ago
Bob
Guest
Bob
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

>Without OLPC I don’t think netbooks as we know them would exist.

This statement is true. It’s commonly recognized that the Asus EEE PC was inspired by the OLPC effort. Stated by no less than the Asus CEO Jonney Shih himself.

http://www.silicon.com/legacy/research/specialreports/agenda-setters-2008/jonney-shih-39295148.htm

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-03/mf_netbooks?currentPage=all

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
7 years ago
Angler43
Guest
Angler43
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that finds OLPC’s tablet bulky and downright ridiculous.  These guys haven’t done much other than blow hot air (as they are doing now and have been doing for the past four years). OLPC is not needed. Pixel Qi is not needed. The Sugar operating system is not needed. Negroponte is a joke. And the unveiling of this tablet show absolutely nothing that is needed or even worth paying for. A $200 off-contract, 4.5-inch Android phone (with HDMI as well as standard audio/video outs [most tvs in the developing world are of standard definition], ability to boot in Linux or Windows 8, etc.) would completely crush any of OLPC’s wet dreams.  And this is a reality coming in a very short time. It really is only a matter of time now.  Companies such as Cubify.com, 1dollarscan.com, Wikipedia.org, YouTube.com, etc.  …are taking off like crazy. … Read more »

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
7 years ago

Follow Liliputing:

Facebook Twitter YouTube tumblr RSS Patreon

Latest News

Google may introduce game streaming hardware at March 19th event

Google is delivering a keynote at this year's Game Developer Conference on March … [Read More...]

Android app update break Nike’s $350 self-lacing shoes

Three decades ago a pair of fictional, self-lacing shoes made their debut … [Read More...]

Purism Librem 5 Linux release date pushed back to Q3, 2019

There are a couple of efforts underway to develop smartphones that run GNU/Linux … [Read More...]

Featured articles

GPD MicroPC handheld computer preview

It's been a good couple of years for handheld computer enthusiasts. Companies … [Read More...]

Taihe Gemini portable 1080p touchscreen monitor preview

The Taihe Gemini portable monitor has made quite a splash since going up for … [Read More...]

Zotac Pico PI470 is a pocket-sized PC with Intel Amber Lake

Zotac's latest pocket-sized computer is the company's most powerful to date. … [Read More...]

Disclosure: Some links on this page are monetized by Skimlinks and Amazon's and eBay's affiliate programs.

Login

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2019 Liliputing · About Liliputing · Contact Us · Privacy Policy · Go to top of page

wpDiscuz
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.